2012 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton’s dominant pole position on Saturday allowed him to save new tyres for the race which was crucial to his strategy.

Hungarian Grand Prix tyre strategies

On a day when overtaking was nigh-on impossible, tyre strategy took on utmost importance.

For the front runners the key was avoiding the seductive but deadly trap of the three-stop strategy, because even with the advantage of new tyres overtaking was terrifically difficult.

Hamilton’s superb performance in qualifying yesterday allowed him to stockpile fresh tyres and run the best strategy available to him. He started on his used softs from Saturday, and then two sets of new medium tyres saw him to the end of the race.

Soft-medium-medium was the preferred strategy, chosen by almost half the competitors. A significant exception was the Lotus drivers, who preferred soft tyres for their middle stint

McLaren opted to break up Jenson Button’s two medium-tyre stints with a short stint on softs. This was a disaster: he got stuck behind Bruno Senna and a potential podium finish turned into a disappointing sixth.

Here are the tyre strategies for each driver:

Stint 1

Stint 2

Stint 3

Stint 4

Stint 5

Lewis Hamilton

Soft (18)

Medium (22)

Medium (29)

Romain Grosjean

Soft (19)

Soft (20)

Medium (30)

Sebastian Vettel

Soft (17)

Soft (21)

Medium (20)

Soft (11)

Jenson Button

Soft (15)

Medium (19)

Soft (11)

Medium (24)

Kimi Raikkonen

Soft (20)

Soft (25)

Medium (24)

Fernando Alonso

Soft (17)

Medium (26)

Medium (26)

Felipe Massa

Soft (18)

Medium (25)

Medium (26)

Pastor Maldonado

Soft (15)

Medium (26)

Medium (28)

Bruno Senna

Soft (16)

Medium (26)

Medium (27)

Nico Hulkenberg

Soft (15)

Medium (24)

Medium (30)

Mark Webber

Medium (20)

Medium (19)

Soft (16)

Soft (14)

Paul di Resta

Soft (16)

Medium (22)

Medium (31)

Nico Rosberg

Soft (16)

Medium (24)

Medium (29)

Sergio Perez

Soft (21)

Medium (26)

Medium (22)

Kamui Kobayashi

Soft (8)

Medium (32)

Soft (27)

Jean-Eric Vergne

Soft (12)

Soft (18)

Soft (16)

Medium (18)

Medium (4)

Michael Schumacher

Soft (1)

Medium (31)

Medium (26)

Daniel Ricciardo

Soft (14)

Soft (20)

Soft (13)

Medium (21)

Heikki Kovalainen

Soft (17)

Medium (19)

Medium (20)

Soft (12)

Vitaly Petrov

Soft (18)

Medium (17)

Medium (16)

Medium (16)

Charles Pic

Medium (20)

Soft (19)

Medium (28)

Timo Glock

Medium (18)

Soft (22)

Medium (26)

Pedro de la Rosa

Medium (22)

Medium (19)

Soft (25)

Narain Karthikeyan

Soft (18)

Medium (21)

Soft (21)

Hungarian Grand Prix pit stop times

For only the second time this year Red Bull were the fastest team in the pits. They were also supremely consistent – all six of their pit stops ranked within the top 11 times.

10 comments on 2012 Hungarian GP tyre strategies and pit stops

Its unreal how Kimi managed to put on a string of fastest laps on the set of Soft tyres during the second stint. And he was the only driver to stay on a set of softs for 25 laps!
I think this worked for him because unlike the other drivers, he was in fresh air after his first pit stop.
This call from the pit lane by Lotus I believe helped both their cars on the podium. Good on them!

Lewis Hamiltonâ€™s dominant pole position on Saturday allowed him to save new tyres for the race which was crucial to his strategy.

But didn’t all the front runners have two new sets of mediums left? His dominance on Saturday might have saved him a set of options in case his first run in Q3 had been better, although that might only have served to lure him into the three-stop-strategy trap as well.

I have often advocated an aggressive, extra-stop strategy, but today the three-stopper didn’t work, especially for Button. What’s more surprising is Button’s comments after the race, in which he stated that the team called him in early for both his first and second stop on strategic grounds, only to find himself dropped into traffic. And his pit stops were pretty fast, too, so they cannot have hoped to get him out well clear of Senna. On a two-stopper, Button may not have ended up on the podium, as Vettel was quite a bit faster behind him, and Raikkonen’s fast second stint passed all bar Hamilton, but at least he would have finished ahead of Alonso.

I don’t know why Button was complaining about the strategy, he was struggling on the tyres his first 2 stops. He may have finished ahead of Alonso, but then again, his tyres may have gone off completely and he would have dropped too far back.

Mclaren are really amazing with their stops.
Despite the error in Button’s stop, it was actually faster than Hamilton’s slow stop.
And their slowest stops were not all that slow in the end.
Amazing. I hope they maintain the consistency.

Note that mclaren put the race on a platter for lotus with their 4.2s first stop for Hamilton. Grosjean was about 2s behind at the time. Of course lotus choked and did a 4.9. Mclaren are patting themselves on the back for quick stops but if that was rbr or ferrari behind they would have punished them for another bad stop.

Although I can understand why they didn’t risk it, having had no long runs on the option in practice, could McLaren have put Hamilton out on softs for his second stint ?
He managed to run a first stint of 18 laps with full tanks on used softs, after locking his fronts quite badly on the first corner. I suspect he could have managed a second stint of 22 laps quite easily.

its no coincidenc that lotus were fast at another very HOT track. (see bahrain and valencia). so maybe the hype around their pace will die down from now on as there arent any other sweltering heat tracks left. (apart from Austin i guess!)